Joan's Minutia: Lots of pictures

May 25, 2007 Friday

Leaving the campus is always an experience. This is what greeted me as I exited the East gate. I actually usually come out of the gate exactly where the truck is. The little castle roof in the background is the Kindergarten.

Since I have been going to Carrefour so regularly, I thought that you would like to see some of it. (They don’t really like you to take pictures – so I was holding off till near the end of the trip.

When you enter the store, there is always a long line of tables with the weekly sale items – known as PROMOTION or PROMO. These signs are always bright yellow with red writing. This week’s promo is fans. (It is getting beastly hot.)

There are always girls handing out tastes. Usually there is one with the tray and one with a microphone. This was for a Nestle’s coffee. They are always dressed in a company costume.

After buying and paying, there has been a game. Today since there was only one other person there, I decided to see what it is about. You give them your store receipt, and depending upon how much you have bought, you get tennis balls. I only got one. Then you try to make a basket. The different baskets are worth different points and get smaller as the points get higher. If you make a basket, you get a prize. It looked like 1 point was worth a washcloth and 5 a can of soda. I didn’t make a basket.

The guy behind me gave me 2 thumbs up because I was joining in the fun. (4 flights)

In the afternoon, I went to find an exhibit that I had been told was on the 5^th floor of the Delicious plaza. When I exited the elevator there was a guide who pointed me in the direction of a – meeting. No, No, wrong place. But there was a lovely roof garden with paths, streams, gold fish, and places to sit.

The next floor had the exhibit. It was about the changes in things – farm equipment, planes, and record players (from cylinder to portable DVD player). Then there was a section about the research that USTC has done in Antarctica with pictures of everything.

Since Delicious Plaza also has a China Unicom booth, I decided to drop in and find out how much money was left on my sim card before I left Hefei. I know that the people at the place in Nanjing weren’t able to put more money on, but they were able to tell me how much I had on the card.

There were 2 young girls. They both insisted that they couldn’t help. I pointed & said Computer? No, no, their computer wouldn’t do it. The one on some other street could. I pantomimed using my phone to find out – I know that this must be possible. Oh, what a novel concept – yes that would work. I almost was ready to say, “What the &*%&%* good are you? Are you just here to sell phone chatchkes?” (However you spell that word – you know, the crap that you can buy for your phone to make it more special.)

On the way back to the apartment, I saw the garbage collection “truck”.

And the street sweeper:

(4 flights)

At dinner time, I walked across campus to meet Chuck in his office. We then could leave by the gate close by and walk to Mao Jia the Hunan restaurant. There was a stroke victim being helped to exercise by his wife. He had a cane in one hand and his wife’s hand in the other. She had a loop on a leash around his bad foot. When he lifted it a little, she gave a tug to bring it forward.

At Mao Jia we had the spicy octopus. I should say the incredibly spicy octopus!!! Some black fermented tofu squares, also spicy, the broccoli rabe that the dim sum restaurants serve and the crudités. You really need the crudités to ease the spiciness.